


God Help Me, Part 7

by ErinGayle



Series: God Help Me [7]
Category: Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Discussion of Rape, F/M, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, M/M, References to Drugs, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:35:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26031259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinGayle/pseuds/ErinGayle
Summary: Christmas Weekend 1944
Relationships: Freddy Finkel/Captain Klenzendorf, Rosie Betzler/Captain Klenzendorf
Series: God Help Me [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819291
Kudos: 7





	1. Friday, December 22

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and those who have kept on reading. We're approaching the summit, and the downhill side is coming up.

## Christmas 1944

###  Friday, December 22

The Friday before Christmas, Rosie and Karl sat in her office wearing their coats while the quiet of falling snow pressed in on the windows. The boiler was fixed; however, the lack of fuel only kept the interior of the school vaguely warm. The children’s fingertips and noses turned blue as they wrote, and their penmanship degraded as they wore gloves and mittens to keep their hands warm. Rosie often wondered why Karl could get coal for a building that was occupied by three adults and she couldn’t for a building used by three hundred children. She knew the answer, and it galled her even more. 

Karl looked up from his ledger book to see tears creeping out of Rosie’s eyes. “It’s really cold in here.” He handed her a linen handkerchief. Rosie used it to carefully dab at her eyes. “I’m worried about Wilhelm Otterbach,” Karl told her.

Rosie set down the handkerchief. “Every week coal is either in short supply or too expensive. What’s wrong with the Otterbach boy?”

Karl closed his book. “He’s going to be on the next conscription list.”

Rosie gasped. Wilhelm Otterbach had just turned fourteen. “You know this already?”

“I can follow a pattern. And, I’m afraid he’ll try to run.”

“Can’t you find some way to make him unqualified?”

“Why him and not Friedrich Helmund? Or Matias Gros? I’d make every one of them a club-footed asthmatic if I could, fit only for the postal service, but then we’d have a whole town of junior postmen and be investigated for producing so many handicapped children.”

Rosie smiled. “They’ve grown on you.”

“Like a fungus,” Karl grouched.

“Were it not for the noble rot, we wouldn’t have Tokaj wine. Can you do anything for the Otterbach boy?”

Karl shook his head. “You don’t actually need two eyes at the front,” he said quietly staring at the pen holder on her desk. “Last summer I dared to say what everyone in the room was thinking and told a General of Infantry to go fuck himself and the idiotic plans from Berlin that would only end up with thousands more dead boys and more self-serving, heroic boasts for the generals. He gave my commander until dawn to get me out of area with orders, or he was going to convene a drumhead court martial and execute me the next day for treason and insubordination. I’m certain Freddie would have been sent to a _strafbatailon_ since he was my secretary. After Brigadier Krieger beat the hell out of me, he spent the night finding somewhere, anywhere to send me. I was the popular, semi-heroic, one-eyed, combat veteran aide of a respected general, and they would have shot me. They’ll just hang Otterbach if he runs. He won’t even make it to a convict battalion.”

Stark silence hung between them, and when Karl looked up, Rosie had his handkerchief up to her eyes. She took a deep breath, cleared her throat, and refolded the handkerchief. “Let’s go home,” she said with finality as she closed her attendance book.

Karl nodded, and silently followed her as she locked up the school for the weekend. They walked nearly alone in the mid-winter darkness. The few people who were out rushed through the cold and snow to get their evening errands done and get home. In decades past there would have been a glowing _Kristkindlmarkt_ on Hohenzollernplatz. This evening, at least there weren’t any new bodies on the gallows. Karl grimly thought Deertz must be giving his hangmen and goons the holiday. The street past the platz, Karl stopped to take the turn to the _Jugend_ building.

“No, I meant let’s go home, to my house,” Rosie said as she clutched at Karl’s wrist. “We can pick up Freddie.”

“He’s going out with that Tekla girl.”

“Then just come with me, Karl.”

Karl hesitated. He wanted to keep his affair with Rosie private, especially from Jojo. His Uncle Otto’s wife had an affair while he was at the front in 1916, and nearly blew up the entire extended family when it became painfully public. Jojo and Rosie only had each other.

“It’s dinner and a drink, Karl. Come on.” Rosie caught his hand in hers and gave it a gentle tug. 

“Alright,” Karl finally acquiesced. He put his arm around her and held her close while they made their way through the nearly empty streets to the Betzlers’.

“Mama, Captain K fell asleep.” Jojo told Rosie as he loitered in kitchen.

Rosie turned around from the sink where she was washing dishes to look through the old kitchen window. “Poor Karl.” Karl was sitting on the couch, his head leaned back and arms crossed.

“Poor Karl?”

“Yes, Karl. That’s his name. And, he’s completely alone. He has no family anymore. No home.”

“He has Herr Finkle.”

Rosie tried to casually look over at her son rather than whip her head around and interrogate him as to how he knew Karl and Freddie’s secret. “Well, I suppose. Herr Finkle’s just his sergeant.”

“Herr Finkle knows everything about Captain K. If Captain K can’t find something or doesn’t remember doing something, Finkie knows exactly. And, Finkie cooks, cleans, and does their laundry. We help him chop vegetables and cook soup every day. He even taught the girls _and_ the boys how to iron a uniform, starch shirts, and fix socks.”

“Sounds like a mama.” Rosie smiled a Jojo. 

Jojo shrugged. “Freddie has a big family. His mother sends letters all the time. He even showed us some pictures of one of his sisters and her new baby. Captain K only gets letters from the Army.”

“Maybe we should invite them for Christmas Eve.”

“But, we don’t even have a Christmas tree.”

Rosie nodded. “We’ll get one tomorrow.” In the gloominess of the weather and general circumstances, Rosie had almost decided to skip Christmas.

The sound of a door closing startled Karl into opening his eyes. No one was in the living room. The fire was going down, and the house sounded asleep. Karl checked his pocket watch. It was 9:30. He stood in front of the fire and drank the last of his whiskey. He thought he should quietly slip out, but then if everyone was asleep who would lock the door? He should have put Rosie’s key on the ring with the building keys. He heard light steps coming downstairs and looked behind him. Rosie had put on her flannel pajamas and a house sweater. 

“Karl, you’re awake.” Rosie felt silly in her frumpy pajamas and dowdy, old sweater. This was definitely not how she normally looked when he was there. 

“I was just thinking it’s probably time for me to go.”

“Sit with me,” Rosie invited him as she sat down on the couch.

Karl looked down at the fire. “You want me to build this up some?”

“Sure.” Rosie stretched out on the couch, her head at the end near the fireplace, and watched Karl bring back the fire. Once he was satisfied, he sat down in the floor, his back to Rosie and his head on the couch cushion with her. She put her arm around his shoulders. “Are you going to spend the night?”

Karl looked at her to his left. “I don’t think so.” His kiss was nearly a whisper.

“Tell me the truth: is it the pajamas?”

Karl smiled. “No. I want to be there when Freddie gets home in case he needs to cry or crow about what he and that girl did or didn’t do.”

Rosie kissed Karl’s cheek. “You’re sweet to him.”

“He’s much better to me. He took care of me for nearly a month this summer. I could barely move. I didn’t want to move. He even took my ammunition he was so afraid I might do something.”

“After your general beat you?”

Karl gazed into the fireplace. He watched the flames weave and waver. “He raped me,” Karl finally said. He felt Rosie’s arm tighten around his shoulders and patted her flannel sleeve, as though reassuring her would help him. He lay his cheek on the comforting flannel. “It was like he was trying to tear me apart. I never lifted a hand to protect myself the whole time. He made me sit on the floor next to his desk all night in the uniform he’d torn off me. He made me kneel in front of him while he petted and ruffed my hair like his favorite dog, then he demanded one last blow job. And, I did it. Why in the hell did I do that?”

Rosie had tried to hold back her tears, but they ran down her cheeks anyway. She wiped the tears from Karl’s cheeks with her flannel cuff. 

Karl turned to look at her with his good eye. “And, I was supposed to be grateful for his mercy in not allowing them to court martial and execute me.”

“He should never have laid a hand on you, let alone have raped you, Karl.” Rosie tried not to let her fury seep into her soft but firm voice.

Karl shook his head. “It’s not like it was the first time it ever happened. It was the first time he was that cruelly violent towards me. It’s just a risk gay men take.”

“You shouldn’t have to risk being beaten and raped for love or even just sex.” Rosie nestled her head on Karl’s shoulder. 

Karl leaned his cheek in Rosie’s hair and was quiet for a while. “When Albrecht hurt me so badly, did you ever think I was…that I deserved what he did?”

“No. No, of course not.” Rosie tried to hold Karl even more tightly. “No one should harm someone else like that.”

“Walther told me I deserved what he did. That I had earned it. He made me….” Karl couldn’t finish the sentence as his throat tightened with so much shame. “I couldn’t stop myself. He told me it was so it wouldn’t hurt so much.” Karl pressed his hand on his eyes to try and stop the tears from bursting forth. “I’ve been shot. I’ve been raked with shrapnel. I lost my eye from white hot burning metal. Nothing hurts like being raped.”

Rosie stifled her own sob and got in the floor with Karl. She wiped his tears with her pajama cuffs before pressing his head to her shoulder and holding him. 

“He protected me, but he also raped me.” Karl tried to exhale but it came out as choking sobs. He felt Rosie’s body all around him as she tried to comfort him.

She held him tighter. “He did something horribly evil to you.”

“And this is so hard for Freddie. He wants me like a wife wants her husband, and sometimes I can’t. I can’t stand the feeling of his hand on me. God help him if he startles me. I see so much pain and fear in his eyes because he doesn’t know what to do. But, then I can come here to you, and let you touch me, make love to you, he is so jealous of that. He knows I make love to you. The man can smell it. I can bathe, and he can still smell you.”

Rosie rubbed Karl’s back. “You don’t have to come over. You don’t have to make love to me when you’re here. If you suddenly stopped, everyone who’s noticed would simply assume we had a falling out. It will be fine, _liebling_.”

Karl looked up at her. She had not seen such torment in his eyes in years. “But, I need you, Schatzie. Being so close to you and not being able to be with you is an agony akin to Sappho.” 

Rosie smiled painfully. Of all the romantic poets, Karl loved a gentle, ancient Lesbian the best. He must have felt her words of want so keenly as he often walked the thin line between friendship and love. She held Karl as close and well as she could. Everyone needed unconditional love, and Rosie sensed that Karl tried to deny that to himself insisting there was something about him which made him unworthy. 

The faint ringing of church bells distracted Karl from his pain. He checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. “I have to go,” he said suddenly as he wiped his cheeks.

“You shouldn’t be alone tonight.” Rosie tried to look in his eyes, but he kept looking away. “You can sleep on the couch.”

Karl stood up. “I’ll be fine.”

Rosie caught his hand in hers. “Promise me you won’t drink anything and that you’ll lock your pistol in your office.”

“Rosie.”

“Promise me,” she begged him in a whisper.

Karl saw she was on the verge of a storm of tears. He couldn’t look at her while he talked about what had happened. He knew she was holding in her own rage and anguish at what had been done to him. “Come here.” He gathered her in his arms. “I promise.” 

Rosie didn’t want to relinquish Karl. “OK,” she finally said. She followed him into the front hall and looped his scarf around his neck as he put on his coat. “Come for Christmas Eve dinner. Bring Freddie.”

Karl pulled her into his unbuttoned coat. “We’ll be here for dinner. What time are you going to church?”

“Herr Deertz kindly permits us midnight mass on Christmas and sunrise mass on Easter.”

Karl saw that Rosie expected him to go to mass. “I haven’t been to regular mass since my confirmation in 1919.”

Rosie shrugged. “You think I want to go listen to that slavering priest? I go because it irritates the Party that they can’t completely make the Church bend to its will.”

“You need any meat?” Karl asked with a resigned sigh. He’d probably have to go to church, ruining a twenty-five year streak with the exceptions of weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

“I’ve got a chicken waiting for me at the butcher tomorrow.”

Karl silently thought he could do better than a chicken. 


	2. Saturday, December 23

###  Saturday, December 23

At midnight Karl decided Freddie wasn’t coming home. He set his alarm for six and went to bed. At six am Karl saw that Freddie still wasn’t home. Karl’s eyes still hurt from crying the previous night. He got dressed to go hunting, anyway. He wore his heavy sweater instead of his _feldbluse_. Otherwise, he might as well have been dressed for any other day at work. He still had a civilian suit and one tweed coat, but they went as unworn as his _waffenrock_. While Karl was frying potatoes for breakfast, the doors downstairs opened and slammed closed. Freddie appeared a few minutes later. 

Karl didn’t turn around. “You want some breakfast?”

Freddie collapsed in one of the leather chairs. He looked over at Karl. “You going hunting?”

“Yes.”

“Then I guess I want breakfast.” Freddie hadn’t even taken off his greatcoat. “That girl is relentless.”

Karl smiled as he tipped out the hash onto two plates. “They are like that at that age.” He took the two plates to the table, then came over to Freddie. He bent down and kissed Freddie on the cheek and neck. “Come on,” Karl said taking Freddie’s hand in his. “Food’s ready.”

Freddie reluctantly left behind his toasty coat and moved to the table. “I’m going to need some Pervitin to get through today,” he said as he picked up his fork. “Don’t make me drive.”

“I’ll drive.”

“Buck or doe?” Freddie mouthed as they watched the deer scratch around the salt block. 

“Doe,” Karl mouthed back and held up two fingers. The second doe from the left. He tapped his chest then his head. He had the better head shot

Freddie nodded and aimed for the doe’s chest. Karl held up his finger. Freddie began to silently count down from three to zero. They fired almost simultaneously. The doe dropped to the ground while the other deer scrambled away into the woods. 

The two men stomped through the knee high snow to their quarry. “Damn,” Freddie said when he got there. “She’s still alive.” He hated those big brown eyes looking at him as he took out his pistol. The heaving chest was worse though. He’d seen too many men breathe like that but still be loaded onto a litter only to die on the way to the field hospital. “Sorry, lovey.” 

Karl lit a cigarette, his first of the day. He watched Freddie dispatch the deer with another head shot. His own head shot hit the cheek. “Damn good chest shot, Finkie.” Karl knelt down and slit the doe’s throat.

Freddie smiled. He and Karl each took a leg and dragged the bleeding carcass back to the road. Freddie collapsed into the backseat of the _kugelwagen_ after they got the deer up in a tree. Karl had found a farmer who would smoke the deer he shot for a hind quarter and no guts. Freddie propped his feet on the front seat. 

Meanwhile, Karl had taken off his coat, sweater, and shirt. His long john top was tucked into his trousers. Freddie tried not to ogle Karl standing there bare chested in the snow. He watched Karl’s muscles slide over his wiry body. Ever since Freddie had known him, Karl had lost weight. His _feldbluses_ and trousers were too big now and the necks of his shirts didn’t really fit him anymore. Freddie snuck a peek at Karl’s medical report when they had headed out to Third Panzer Army at the beginning of 1944. Karl had only weighed sixty-five kilos after five months in the hospital and convalescent duty. If he weighed seventy now, Freddie would be surprised.

Karl carefully and quickly dressed the deer. He felt the cold in his fingers and his right shoulder these days. Once Karl had a mid-line incision, he carefully separated the diaphragm’s membrane and continued into the chest cavity. If he did it right, all the organs would come falling out from the top of the chest down. He cut the trachea and pulled. He smiled broadly to see the organs and guts cleanly spill out. In the car, Freddie looked away. He pulled Karl’s coat over him to keep warm. He also fished out Karl’s flask. After taking a drink, he went back to watching Karl. He could count every one of Karl’s ribs from breast to spine.

“I spent the night with Tekla last night.”

“Yeah?” Karl assumed as much. He inspected the cavity of the deer for filth and began to pack it with snow to cool it. 

“She lives with her aunt and uncle in town during the week so she can work at the _fabrik_. Did you know the Betzlers used to own it?”

“Really?” Karl scooped clean snow into a bucket and dumped it into the deer. 

“Herr Betzler sold it when his mother passed away. Anyway, I’m thinking we’re going to just listen to the radio and make out on the couch. No. It’s dinner and cards with her aunt and uncle. By the time they went to bed, it was ten-thirty. She took me upstairs, and that was it.”

“What was it?”

“She attacked me. She said I either made love to her or else.”

Karl looked over his shoulder to Freddie. “Or else what?”

“Or else she’d find someone else. She said she was tired of everyone saying she must be a lesbian because she couldn’t bed a man.”

“Is she?” Karl was still filling the deer.

Freddie shrugged. “I don’t know. How can you tell?”

“How’d you know about me?”

Freddie waved that off. “Anyway, I just let her do it.”

“That is the most unromantic description of sex I have ever heard. _I fucked her_ has more passion than that.” Karl was finished with the deer for the moment and rubbed snow on his hands and forearms to get rid of the blood. He poked the carcass, satisfied himself it wasn’t going into rigor, then sat down in the driver’s seat to take a drink from his flask. 

Freddie hadn’t felt particularly passionate the previous night. He’d felt embarrassed. Looking at the heat steaming off Karl’s sweaty body stirred more passion in him, handily hidden by the second greatcoat. “She asked why I wasn’t instantly jumping all over her, I told her it had been so long since I had sex with a woman not a whore, I’d gotten out of practice and was afraid I’d just go too fast. She pushed me on the bed and told me to lay back and enjoy it.” Freddie gestured for the flask. “I don’t think she was actually a virgin.”

“Well, whatever you do, don’t ever tell her that.” Karl passed Freddie his flask. He almost praised Freddie for an excellent extemporaneous lie as he lit a new cigarette. “Did you enjoy it?”

Freddie shrugged. “I was…I don’t know. She felt different in my hands and arms. She was softer. And, she was on top, so her breasts were….Anyway, I did it. She seemed pleased. I slept in her bed with her, and this morning when I woke up, she was already starting on me. And, we did it again, this time from behind while she did…something with her hand.”

Karl couldn’t help but smile. “Too bad she didn’t have a muscle massager.” He tapped the ash off his cigarette. “You used a condom, didn’t you?”

Freddie felt a little piqued, because he certainly would never have asked Karl if he had used a condom with Her. “Do you use one with Her?”

Karl stood up and walked back to the deer. He turned the carcass to palpate and cut the backstraps. “No, but she isn’t a twenty year old girl running around with God knows who looking for a husband. She’s already married. Her husband is away in the Wehrmacht, and she has a couple of kids. She doesn’t want any more and takes care of it herself. Why do you think I go over there late and come home early? Her kids are asleep when I get there, and I leave before they wake up. I’m there for a woman, not to play house.”

“So, you can trust her?”

“Utterly.”

This seemed like a fair situation to Freddie. “Yes, I did.” Freddie watched Karl. Karl bare chested in the snow butchering a deer was one of the most masculine and erotic things Freddie had ever seen. “What if She does get pregnant?”

“Tekla?”

“NO, Her.”

Karl dropped the first backstrap onto a piece of newspaper. “Well, I guess I would deal with that in eight or nine months. Though I’m willing to bet she knows who does abortion work in this town.”

Karl drove to the Morgenstern farm with just his unbuttoned long john top on his arms and chest. By the time he got there he was both dry of sweat and freezing cold. He dressed properly before knocking on the farmhouse door. Karl left the carcass and accepted Herr Morgenstern’s Christmas gift of homemade schnapps. As they drove back to town, Karl told Freddie about Rosie’s invitation to dinner.

“Tekla’s uncle and aunt invited me as well. Apparently, the whole town spends the evening having dinner, goes to midnight mass, then all go home and drink until dawn.”

That was how Karl remembered Christmas with his parents. “And?”

“Why are you Catholics going to church at midnight? It’s already Sunday. Just go in the morning and get it done with.”

Karl shook his head. “Protestants. You protest everything.”

“So, I think I am going to Tekla’s relatives and not Frau Betzler’s.”

Karl nodded. “You want to take them the other backstrap?”

“You don’t mind?”

“You actually killed the deer, Freddie. I should be asking you.”

Freddie smiled. “Well, then yes, please do take a backstrap to Frau Betzler.”

Karl laughed and tousled Freddie’s hair.


	3. Sunday, Christmas Eve

### Sunday, Christmas Eve

Freddie heard Karl moving around on Sunday morning. Unless Karl wanted to go out hunting, they normally slept as late as each might want. Freddie sat up in his bed and saw that Karl was dressed and ready to leave. “Where are you going?”

“Confession.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Karl knew he could skip communion, but that didn’t seem like the example to set for all the kids. “You’ve asked me to go to Mass so that you don’t have to sit with Tekla’s family. Rosie assumes I’m going and will walk back home with her for dinner. I can’t go to church, everyone knowing I’m Catholic, and not take Communion in front of all those little HJs. They’d probably all report me to the Gestapo for a lack of religious piety.”

Freddie turned over in his covers, enjoying the warmth. “Have fun.”

“That’s generally not the point. I’ll be back later.” Karl left, locking the doors behind him. Confession started at seven am. He hoped that by getting there early, there wouldn’t be anyone waiting.

The parish church was a generic, baroque pile painted pink and containing the requisite Theresan monstrances, minor relics, and third rate paintings of agony. Karl walked in and automatically reached for the font. The church was thankfully empty. And cold. Karl could see his breath in the light of the weak electric chandeliers. There were a few votive candles burning. After genuflecting, he found the confessional. Even as he pulled the musty, velvet curtain, he had no idea what he would say. He knelt and heard the wooden divider slide. “Bless me father, for I have sinned. My last confession was fifteen years ago.”

“Continue.”

Karl sighed. “I think I’ve pretty much run the gambit: Lust, Anger, Pride, Blasphemy, Bearing False Witness. I’ve been years on the Eastern Front. I know the difference between combat and murder. And, I murdered a child. I found some of my men raping a little Russian girl in a horse shed. She was just eight or nine. By the time I arrived, she wasn’t much more than a bloody rag doll. She had golden hair and big green eyes. She had run out of tears and just lay there looking up at me.” Karl paused to calm his breathing. 

“There was no Russian doctor to take her to, and no German doctor was going to see to those kinds of injuries on a Russian child before treating a wounded German soldier. So, I could let her lay there and suffer, slowly bleeding to death, or….” Karl couldn’t even say it. 

“I wrapped her in a dirty horse blanket.” Karl’s voice began to catch. “Tried to sing her a lullaby and held her until her eyes closed. I laid her down in the same bloody filth where she’d been raped.” He could feel his throat tightening, as if his body could stop him from this confession. “And shot her.” Karl tasted a tear as it seeped into his mouth and pressed his handkerchief against his eyes. “She must have thought I was going to save her, but I killed her instead.”

“And, the men?”

Karl folded his handkerchief. “I summarily executed them for rape of a child,” he said coldly. He felt no need to confess those deaths as a sin.

The priest audibly gasped. “Fifteen years is a long time away from the Church. How often do you say a rosary?”

“Sober?”

“Do you even remember the prayer for penance?”

“No.”

The priest audibly sighed. His penitent had fallen far from the Church but knew more of the soul’s pain and the difficult morality of war than a theologian. He was not here for punishment but rather acknowledgement that he was still a good and decent person. “One full rosary. Sober. _Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti_.”

Karl crossed himself and left the confessional. He found the darkest pew in the church, knelt down, and started on the rosary. He was nearly finished when he heard sharp footsteps on the church’s stone floor. He peeked up, because he didn’t want people noticing him at confession either, and saw Rosie heading for the confessional. Even though he slowed his last decade of Hail Mary’s, she was still confessing when he finished. He had a loose mark in his pocket and dropped it in the alms box. Using a long splinter, he transferred the flame from one votive candle to another and silently asked forgiveness from one unnamed little girl. With no more reason to stay, he stepped outside, where he lit a cigarette barely off the stoop. He slowly left Hohenzollernplatz, trying not to look at the gallows. Setting them up right there in front of the parish church betrayed the Party’s affectation for religion. 

An arm slid through Karl’s, and he found himself attached to Rosie. “Well, good morning, Frau Betzler.”

“Can you believe Deertz? First, he cancels midnight mass, saying it’s plenty dark at six for candlelight voodoo, then he hangs two people this morning.”

Karl didn’t look over his shoulder. “I thought they’d taken the holiday off.” 

“The Gestapo never takes a holiday.” 

Karl stopped at the corner where he needed to turn to go home. “Rosie, please take this in the spirit it’s offered: let it go for today. Let Jojo have a happy Christmas.” Karl looked down at Rosie, who stared at the street. He tilted her chin up, but she was still frowning. “Maybe have a happy Christmas yourself. Just one day not fretting over the wrongs of the world?” he wheedled.

“I’ll try,” she finally replied. 

“How do you think the town would react if I just kissed you right here on the street?” he asked as he stroked her cheek.

Rosie softly smiled. “I think a certain young man from Dortmund would be heart broken.” She winked at him. “You know he has a terrible crush on me.”

Karl laughed a bit. He took her hand and kissed it. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Freddie walked halfway across Hohenzollernplatz and suddenly stopped. “What?” Karl asked. 

“This is more than I think I want to do, sir.”

“What? Step inside a Catholic church?” Karl stopped and lit a cigarette. He could see they were early. 

Freddie had been in plenty of Catholic churches, most of them had been bombed out or were being used as cover. “No, the whole family thing. Boys started hanging around my family, and next thing you know my sister was married. I don’t want to get married.” At least not to a girl, he added silently to himself. 

Karl smiled at Freddie. He put his arm over Freddie’s shoulder and shook him a bit. “You’ll be fine. And, quite honestly, tell her you have to go back to Dortmund and take care of your elderly parents at the end of the war.”

“My mother’s only fifty-one, Captain.”

“You’re overthinking it, Finkie. I won’t let any scary papists or desperate girls get you.” Karl reached into his pocket and pulled out his flask. “Liquid courage.”

Freddie hesitated. “Drinking before church?”

Karl opened the flask and took a drink. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Drinking before Mass, Captain?” a smooth yet dangerous voice asked as it came up on Karl’s blind side.

Karl handed the flask to Freddie and turned to his right. “Why do you think we drink wine during communion? It’s to top you off.” Karl laughed at his own supposedly drunken joke. “Herr Deertz, I’m surprised to see you here. Taking attendance?” He didn’t Heil the man or offer to shake his hand.

Deertz smiled. Karl really should have Heiled him and at least addressed him as _captain_. “No, just doing my Christian duty.”

Karl smirked. “We all know you’re about as attached to your obligations as a Catholic as I am.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“To protect Sergeant Finkle from the ravages of rapacious, young, papist women.”

Even in the dimness of the platz, Deertz saw Freddie’s embarrassment. “Well, in a generation or two, our descendants won’t have to worry about foreign religions.”

Karl felt Freddie hand back his flask. “I’d wish you a Merry Christmas, but it seems you’ve already had one,” he said nodding toward the two new victims of the gallows. “Finkle, come on. I may have to go to confession again.”

“And what sin have you committed since this morning, Captain?” Deertz asked as Karl and Freddie walked away.

Karl’s blind eye winked over his shoulder. “Hubris. Always hubris.” Freddie followed Karl into the church, both of them taking off their hats. Karl reached for the font on his right and felt water poured on his hand. He pulled his hand back and turned his head to see one of the HJ’s dressed as an altar server adding to the Holy Water. “Sorry, Captain K.”

Karl smiled. “It’s my fault. I still forget I can’t see that way. Just tell the priest you accidentally baptized me for a second time.” Karl shook his wet hand over the font. 

“Sir, why aren’t the lights on?” Freddie asked.

“At Christmas you only use candles. Blame the Austrians.”

“We can blame them for a lot more than that,” Freddie mumbled.

“Captain Klenzendorf! Welcome! I was wondering if you would ever grace us, or if perhaps you were a Protestant.” The parish priest was wearing white vestments and a gold stole over his black cassock. The stole was embroidered with various runic symbols promoted by the Nazi party including the swastika, the shutzstaffel, the wolfsangle, and the broken sun wheel.

Karl politely smiled at the priest. He had no idea if people Heiled priests in church. He really didn’t want to know. Right then he felt like his mortal soul was in danger, which he found strange as he barely believed in an afterlife or any eternal judgement. “Father,” he left a pause for the priest’s name.

“Bernard Klaus. And, your assistant?”

“Of course. Freddie Finkle.” Karl lowered his voice. “He’s a Protestant.”

Father Bernard smiled. “We can fix that. Please sit in the front pew. Apparently, it used to be reserved for the graf’s family.”

Karl allowed them to be ushered to the front, where everyone would see him. “And, what was the family name?”

“Von Brunnerbach, I believe. The sons moved away after the last war. To Munich, I think. They still own land here and rent it out, but none have darkened our door recently.”

Sitting in the front pew was not what Karl wanted, but he acquiesced to it. It was better than making a scene. Freddie had no idea what to do other than sit. “Sir, I don’t know what to do.”

“Just follow along.”

Freddie thought this was less than useful advice. “What about communion?”

“You can sit in the pew and wait or go up there with me. Whatever you do, don’t take communion. You’ll go to hell for blasphemy.”

Freddie almost laughed when Karl said he’d go to hell, since Karl had said they’d already been there several times in Russia. He looked behind him as the church filled up. “Tekla and her family are here.” He gave her a little wave when she saw him.

Karl looked back and saw a slight though buxom blonde girl with a pert nose and broad cheeks. She had her hair up in braids and wore a blue and gold dirndl. She caught Karl looking at her and smiled a bit. Karl nodded his head and reached for the hymnal. “That is one fine looking young woman, Freddie.”

Freddie gave her a last little wave and turned his attention to the hymnal in Karl’s hands. “You think so?” He thought Tekla was somewhat average for a female.

“I very much do, and had she approached me in the _ratskeller_ I would have been sorely tempted, despite the fact I’m old enough to be her father.” He looked over at Freddie. “You two will have really good looking children,” he teased.

Freddie turned scarlet. “Don’t say things like that!” he softly hissed. “We’re in a church!”

Karl was reaching for every bit of levity he could find. He barely believed in the religion he’d been brought up in but felt compelled to follow its basic rules. He may have confessed to a Nazi priest, who shared everything with the Gestapo. He’d been seated in a prominent pew, and he really wished he’d drunk more to make this more bearable. 

Both Freddie and Karl expected the Mass to start with one of the traditional Christmas hymns. They were both shocked to hear the _Deutschlandlied._ They quickly came to attention and gave the sharpest German salute they could, since everyone could see them. Just as they lowered their arms, the _Horst-Wessel-Lied_ started. 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Karl softly exclaimed in annoyance. As someone who’d been attacked by and fought back against both fascists and communists in the streets of Heidelberg and Berlin, he wished both groups happy eternities in Hell. He and Freddie thrust out their arms once again, but this time Karl didn’t sing along. He mumbled the words, though Freddie knew the song well. Karl couldn’t fault him that. Freddie had been a child in the twenties and learned the song fervently as a teen in the HJs during the thirties. 

Freddie sat down like everyone else did after the first real hymn and promptly realized the priest wasn’t speaking German. “Sir, they aren’t speaking German.”

Karl leaned over. “It’s Latin. Just do what I do. You’ll be ok.”

Freddie sat, knelt, stood, folded his hands, and mumbled along. Every so often there was a German hymn. He might as well have been in a foreign country and not Germany. As he went through the motions of the Mass, he decided he knew exactly what he was doing when the war was over, going back North. Karl was oddly comfortable here, but Southern Germany was too foreign and too rural for Freddie Finkel from Dortmund. Maybe that would hold off Tekla’s marital ambitions.

As Father Bernard went through the preparation for the distribution of communion, Karl took his rosary out of his pocket. These brief moments were meant for personal prayer and reflection. Karl rarely prayed when sober, but this night he did so fervently. He prayed that if there was a God and if there was divine judgement, his participation in this blasphemous mass, as well as Freddie’s and Rosie’s and all the kids’, wouldn’t be held against them. Karl felt an elbow in his ribs.

“The priest is staring at you,” Freddie whispered.

Karl looked up from his rosary. “Damnit. He’s waiting for me. I’m first. Just stay here.” Karl stood up, smoothed his _feldbluse_ , and walked up to the communion rail with his rosary in his hands. He knelt down and opened his mouth. He felt the communion wafer stick to his tongue. As a child he had been very careful to never break the wafer, not out of piety but out of perfectionism. This night, he deliberately broke it in half. The sour wine flowed over his tongue, and Karl swallowed the unholy communion as quickly as he could. He crossed himself and walked around to the other end of the pew. Freddie saw the pained skepticism on Karl’s face when he returned. Karl retook his seat, and immediately heard a whispered, “Heil Hitler, Captain K.”

Startled, Karl looked to his left. It was one of the younger boys in line for communion. “Heil Hitler,” he answered. Then, realizing every child in the church might Heil him, Karl pulled out his rosary, got back on his knees, and yanked Freddie down next to him. Freddie was confused and thought everyone was supposed to remain in prayer during communion. Karl heard variations of, “Don’t bother them. They’re praying.” And, “See, the Captain prays with a rosary.” He also heard a few awed whispers about skulls and black beads, as though his rosary were some grisly battlefield trophy. 

Mass finally ended, however Karl’s religious torment did not. Sitting at the front of the church put him last to leave, even if it was the graf’s pew. In an effort to escape talking and greeting half the parish, he walked over to one of the side altars. He lit a candle and knelt down to at least appear to be praying again.

“You’re looking pretty pious this evening, Captain.” Freddie was standing by, ready to intercept any of the kids or parents. 

“I’m praying to God not to ever be this stupid again. I should be at home cozily drunk.”

“You’re giving those beads a workout today.” 

“Just tell me when we can get out of here with minimum fuss.”

Freddie stood there, smiling and watching Tekla try to prolong leaving. She kept looking over at Freddie and smiling. “Why does she keep looking over here?”

“She likes you, Freddie. You’re twenty-four, employed, have all your pieces and parts. I know you can flirt. Try it with her.”

Freddie winked at Tekla then pretended to be looking at the paintings on the other side of the nave. “Just about everyone is out.”

“Where’s Deertz?”

“Already gone.”

Karl sighed in relief. He crossed himself again and got up. “Look, if you need to get out fast, tell her family that regulations require the premises to be inspected by fire watch at 11 pm every night, and you have no idea what time I’ll get back.” They started walking toward the back of the church.

“You’re just going to the Betzlers’ for dinner.”

“It’s Sunday,” Karl reminded.

Freddie cringed a bit. “Christmas Eve? Really? What about Her…family?” he asked in a scandalized whisper.

Karl shrugged. It did look callous. “Anyway. You have an out if you need it.”

Freddie noticed how Tekla was loitering around the votive candles at the doors. “Guess I’d better go.”

“Yeah.” Karl wanted to hug and kiss Freddie goodbye. They could be at home, together, cooking dinner, drinking, and later making love to one another. But, two bachelors who turned down invitations to be around a busy table and warm fireplace in the glow of a Christmas tree would be looked at oddly. Instead, Freddie was going to the family of the girl he really didn’t want to date and had no intention of having anything but a convenient fondness for, and he, Karl, was going to have a few hours of the benign domestic life that could have been or possibly still could be. “Merry Christmas, Sergeant Finkle.” He held out his hand. 

“Merry Christmas, sir.” Freddie shook Karl’s hand. He sighed as he painfully smiled then released Karl’s hand. He really wanted to grab Karl in a tight embrace and kiss him long and hard. Turning away, he didn’t look back at Karl standing in the aisle of the church, alone. Instead, Freddie put an excited smile on his face and raised his arm to catch Tekla around the shoulders. Tekla kissed his cheek, and they left.

Karl walked down the aisle of the empty nave. He wasn’t looking for Rosie but saw her in the golden light cast from the large racks of lit votive candles. He hadn’t seen her in that much candlelight since her wedding. He watched her pull her black lace veil from her hair. The candlelight settled around her face but blazed in her hair. She was so beautiful. He wanted to kiss her, too, as fully and deeply as possible as she stood there holding Jojo’s hand, waiting for him. He felt the familiar wave of excruciating regret go through him. He almost wished he’d never seen her again in his life. 

“Captain Klenzendorf,” Rosie said with a smile.

“Frau Betzler.” Karl bent down and kissed each of her cheeks. 

Jojo rolled his eyes. “Hi, Captain K.”

“Hey, kid.” Karl pushed Jojo’s hair off his forehead. He felt Rosie’s arm slide around his. “So, has the Christkind visited you yet?”

Jojo shook his head. “She comes after church.”

Rosie started the trio out the door. “We’d better go see if she’s come, or if coming to church so early messed up her plans.”

Karl kept an eye out for Deertz. He was not disappointed to see the man lingering further down the platz. Thankfully, the street to Rosie’s house came before where Deertz was loitering. Karl was certain that Deertz was keeping an eye on him or Rosie or both of them. “Who was hearing confessions this morning?”

“Father Nicolas.”

Karl exhaled with relief. 

“You met Father Bernard I take it.”

As soon as he walked in the door, Jojo checked under the small Christmas tree on a card table in the corner between the dining and living rooms. Rosie and Karl were still hanging up their coats. “No Christkind.”

“Well, it’s really early Jojo,” Rosie reminded him. “Captain, would you like a drink?”

Karl nodded. “Frau Betzler, this is the second time this weekend you’ve so graciously invited me to dinner. Perhaps we could dispense with _Captain_ and you call me _Karl_?”

Rosie smiled. “Fair enough, as long as you call me _Rosie_.”

“Well, then, Rosie, I would like a drink. Mass was a little taxing for me.”

Rosie poured them both whiskey. “I think I’ll take this into the kitchen and finish dinner.”

“Do you need any help?” Karl asked, following her.

“No. Not now at least.” Rosie put on her apron while Karl hung in the doorway. “Where’s Freddie?”

“He went to Tekla’s aunt and uncle.”

“Tekla? Tekla Braun?”

“Is there more than one Tekla in this town?”

“Actually, no. She’s a smart choice. Very bright. She didn’t go to university last year because of the bombing. Her parents were so worried she wouldn’t be allowed to start later. I expect her to attend as soon as this is over, and it’s safe to do so. She won second place in the Bavarian Chemistry exams.” 

Karl was impressed with both Tekla and how much Rosie knew about people in town. “Really? No _flower born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air **[1]**_?”

Rosie was moving around the kitchen, assembling her ingredients. She smiled at Karl’s allusion. Once upon a time, he could barely speak without one. “Few of us are. So, we are having venison Diane with my _kartoffleauflauf_ and leeks.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Rosie half smiled. “My mother would have called it peasant food.”

Karl smiled wistfully. “The days of Empire.”

“Mama, can I light the fireplace?” Jojo stuck his head in the kitchen window.

Rosie was glad her back was turned. She didn’t want to think about the mess Jojo would make doing that. “Well…”

“Mama, it’s Christmas.”

Rosie looked over at Karl. He swallowed the last of his whiskey. “Come on, Herr Betzler. I’ll help you bring the wood in.”

Once the fire was blazing, Rosie had Jojo set the table and Karl open a bottle of wine. Jojo gasped at the alcohol flare when she deglazed the pan with cognac. Unlike most dinners with Jojo, Rosie plated the food in the kitchen. She brought out all three plates at once. Jojo remembered her often doing that when Inge was still alive. He thought it was nearly a magic trick that she could carry three plates at once. For dessert, Rosie had managed to round up the ingredients for a _buche de noel_. Jojo poked at it suspiciously as a foreign dessert. Karl savored every bite. It reminded him of the _konditereis_ he and Rosie used to frequent.

Rosie washed and Karl dried while Jojo sat in the living room waiting for the real magic of Christmas Eve. When they were coming close to the end of the dishes, Rosie called to Jojo, “Jojo, go bring in enough wood for the evening.”

Jojo hopped up and paused as he walked by the kitchen door. “How much is that?”

“Up to your eyebrows,” Rosie asked without stopping her scrubbing of the baking dish.

Jojo looked to Karl hopefully, who held up a dish and the dishcloth. “Sorry, Little Man. I’m decisively engaged.”

As soon as Jojo went out the back door, Rosie shoved the well cleaned dish at Karl and ran out of the kitchen. She had hidden the few presents under the couch and quickly put them under the small tree. “When he comes back in, start putting the pans on the dresser. There’s a crystal bell on it. I’ll tell you when to ring it.”

Karl nodded. He remembered this subterfuge for his little brothers and jokingly the officers in messes over the years. The Christkind, usually the youngest and newest lieutenant dressed in a tatty blond wig and an old priest’s vestment, had brought adult men whiskey and cigars. “What did you get him?”

Rosie sighed. “Nothing new. There’s nothing to buy. I traded a teacher soap for a sweater for him, another teacher traded some game about sinking a fleet, and Frau Gottlieb gave me a Monopoly game and a Scrabble game from her boys.[2] Headmaster Gottleib convinced her that dead men don’t need toys as much as living children do.” Rosie wiped a tear from her eye. “I feel so sorry for her.”

“You’re a good person, Rosie.” Karl barely kissed her cheek before the backdoor reopened. He grabbed some pots and turned to put them on the dresser, moving the crystal bell a bit.

“I got the wood, Mama.” Jojo kicked the backdoor shut, rattling the glass panes.

“Jojo!”

“Sorry.” 

Rosie was fussing with wiping up the kitchen table so she could see the dining room. As soon as Jojo passed the kitchen door, she motioned to Karl, and he rang the bell quickly. They both heard the wood land on the hall floor and cringed. “Dear God,” Rosie muttered.

“She came! She came!”

Karl and Rosie walked into the living room via the dining room to avoid the pile of wood in the floor. Jojo was excitedly shaking the presents wrapped in worn, years’ old Christmas paper. “Before you open those, let me take a picture of you and your mother,” Karl said.

Jojo stared at Karl for a moment. “Why?”

“For your mother,” Karl said as though it were obvious. He had his camera in his coat pocket.

“What a perfect idea,” Rosie added as she took off her apron. She wrangled a brightly smiling Jojo onto the couch at the end near the fireplace.

“Johannes, look at me not the presents,” Karl said just before he snapped the picture. He watched as Jojo sprang from the couch. “Well, I don’t think he was moving. Don’t you move, Rosie. This one’s for Captain Betzler.”

Rosie smiled at Karl as he took the photo then motioned for him to join her on the couch when he was finished. He sat at the opposite end. They watched her son carefully unwrap the well-used paper. Jojo held up the sweater. “Oh, thank you, Christkind,” he said blandly. The games were much more exciting. “Which one do we play first?”

“Not Monopoly,” Karl declared. “I’ve broken up barracks brawls over that game.”

Rosie looked at the game box. “You’re kidding.”

Karl got up and poured himself and Rosie more whiskey. “I am not. The minute someone reaches for the rules, it’s over. Death before bankruptcy. _That_ ,” Karl said pointing at the game box. “Is the real soul of America. And, God help anyone who gets in their way.”

Rosie took her whiskey. “My goodness. Well, I have a few things to do in the kitchen, so why don’t you play the one about the fleet?”

Karl winked at Jojo. “Maybe we’ll figure a better way than the General Staff.”

Rosie left them to spread out the board on the dining room table. She clattered around softly in the kitchen so she could gather up some food for Elsa. Neither Jojo nor Karl noticed her slip upstairs. When she returned she picked up Karl’s camera from the end table. Karl and Jojo were bent over the board, but only Jojo was smiling. Karl was seriously studying his options, leaning his head on his hand. He actually looked perturbed.

Rosie focused the camera as she heard him say, “I’m the military officer. I should be better at this.” She carefully pressed the Leica’s chrome button. 

After Karl lost his fleet, he reached for the Scrabble game. Jojo objected. “We all speak German,” Karl brushed aside the objection.

“But, you and Mama are adults. You know more words than I do.”

Rosie said nothing and sipped her whiskey.

Karl eyed Jojo. “I’ll spot you fifty points or a dictionary.”

“Fifty points.”

Smiling, Rosie passed around the tile bag. She knew Jojo got along with Karl, she’d just never seen it. If they had all stayed in Berlin and the Nazis not come to power, Karl would have been Jojo’s godfather, too, she thought to herself. And, Rosie was sure they would have been thick as thieves, with Karl covering up for all manner of Jojo’s misbehavior and the giver of outlandish and probably dangerous gifts no sane parent would ever buy. 

“And turn the lights off!” Rosie stood in the darkened hallway watching to make sure Jojo turned off his bedroom lights.

Karl was stirring the fire and drinking a glass of whiskey. He shook his head at Rosie and Jojo. He and his brothers, and Rosie as well, had nannies. They had politely told their parents good night after tea and that was it until breakfast. The only ones fussing at them had been frustrated servants.

“What are you laughing about?” Rosie asked as she dropped onto the sofa. 

“Just remembering how it used to be. I don’t think my mother ever put me to bed once in my life.”

Rosie leaned her head back. “I’m surprised my mother remembered my name. She apparently handed me off to the wet nurse and remembered to collect me before they sailed back to Germany ten years later.” Rosie exaggerated the depth of her mother’s neglect. There had been a German nanny and governess if only so she wouldn’t grow up speaking Qingdao Mandarin.

Karl set his empty whiskey glass on the side table while he added wood to the fire. He laid down on the sofa with his head in Rosie’s lap. “What are you doing?” Rosie asked him teasingly as she smoothed his hair back from his face. 

Karl half smiled. “Playing house.”

Rosie didn’t pretend to understand. She tucked her hand into Karl’s crossed arms. 

Karl looked over at the small tree. “Is that an ornament of Hitler’s head on your tree?”[3]

Groaning, Rosie stared at the ceiling. “Jojo insisted. Frau Betzler adored those fucking ornaments. In 1939, she finally had a completely Nazi tree. She died in the glow of it. I keep hoping to accidentally crush the box. I’ve even thought of getting a cat. What did you think of Mass?”

“Blasphemous, heretical priest so it doesn’t count. My record is intact.”

“You noticed the stole.”

“And the _Horst-Wessel-Lied_. Those bastards tried to kill me on more than one occasion, for multiple reasons, too. As if I’m going to sing a song dedicated to them.”

Rosie remembered how rough and dangerous Berlin had been for them, but also how glorious. “I’m glad Paul and I left, but I long to go back.”

“It’s going to be a bombed out mound of rubble before this is all over.”

Rosie watched the logs crack and fall through the grate. “How much longer can this last?”

“September, October at the most. We’ll be out of food. No one can plant and harvest enough this year. The Americans will be across the Rhine by spring, then there’s nothing between them and Berlin. As for the Russians, the less said about them the better. We burned our way to Moscow. They’re going to repay us the favor, in spades.”

“Have you ever thought of leaving?”

“Desertion? No. But when the time comes, you should do what you have to.”

“I will.” Rosie thought about Elsa, eating a brown bread, cold potato, and venison sandwich for Christmas. She couldn’t figure out what to do with the girl if she and Jojo needed to leave. There was nowhere else to send her. Karl didn’t know that his hunting and patriotic wheedling of farmers was helping to feed one teenaged, Jewish girl. Rosie thought that if Karl were paying more attention, he might ask how she and Jojo were going through the food he wordlessly left her so quickly, yet she never gained any weight. She was thankful that he had the manners not to ask if he noticed. Rosie looked down at Karl. Since they were young he’d put his head in her lap, sometimes to sleep, sometimes to laugh, sometimes to cry. “I love you,” she whispered. 

Karl turned his head and looked up at Rosie instead of into the fire. “I love you, too.”

“When everything is over, come back and stay with me and Jojo. Bring Freddie with you.”

Karl and Paul had been friends, but Rosie had been a stressful issue between them. Karl knew Paul hadn’t forbid Rosie from working with him and being his confidant even if Paul had wanted to, and he had exploited that to keep Rosie closer to him than he should have. Paul had mentioned a few times to Karl that with Rosie working she kept putting off having more children. The publishing calendar was never quite right. “Yes, then Jojo can also be teased about his two queer uncles, and I’m sure Paul will be thrilled to come home and find me and my gay lover here with his wife, with whom I’ve also been having an affair.”

“But, Falkenheim needs a good flower shop.” Rosie felt Karl’s soft chuckle. 

“You and Jojo need Paul more.” Karl reached up and ran his thumb over her cheek. “Look at me. Paul’s coming home to _his_ family.” For the first time, Karl saw doubt in Rosie’s eyes. She patted his shoulder for him to let her up and reached into the windows behind the sofa.

“The Christkind left this for you,” Rosie said as she handed him a small present wrapped in water spotted tissue paper and butcher’s string. She leaned over the back of the sofa to watch Karl open it. Karl untied the string and unfolded the paper without ripping it. Rosie watched him smile.

“Oh, my God. Where did you find this?” He ran his fingers over the gold embossed title: _Poetry of Ancient Love , Franz-Karl von Corten, editor_. He looked up at Rosie hanging over him, and she bent down to kiss him. “My first disastrous entry into the poetry market.”

“And last. It almost cost you the business. I have a few spare copies in my attic.” Rosie sat down next to Karl, settling her chin on his shoulder. “I told you the title was terrible.”

“It was because none of it rhymed. Unimaginative, bourgeois sheep,” he retorted. “I told the translators to use the exact words with the exact same meaning in context.”

“And, then you made them beautiful.” Rosie feathered her fingers along the edge of Karl’s blouse collar, vaguely tickling his sensitive nape. “You were never meant for the military. Despite the fencing lessons, riding lessons, boxing lessons, hunting, and shooting, you were always too far away, lost in an adventure in the South Seas or watching flower petals falling in a summer rain.”

Karl opened the book and perused the pages. He hadn’t thought of these poems let alone the book in years. “My father and Uncle Stefan had a terrible argument about that. My parents wouldn’t send me away to cadet school, and Stefan was furious. He said he had to suffer why shouldn’t I. And, my father said exactly that. _Because that boy doesn’t have a martial bone in his body. His staff reports will be full of god damned poetry and literary allusions._ ”

“Were they?”

Karl smiled. “I toned it down. Thank you, Rosie.” He leaned over and kissed her, and Rosie caught his cheek in her hand to keep him there. Karl’s lips were soft and supple. He never forged too far ahead or clumsily thrust his tongue around his lover’s mouth. He gently pushed and flittered, pulling back if he felt resistance or hesitance. He seduced his lovers with small kisses and deft fingers. He put down the book on the end table in order to put his arms around Rosie and let her push him onto his back. One of his knees was bent against the back of the sofa and the other foot braced against the floor.

“You’ve always been the best kisser,” Rosie said breathily.

“I got started early,” he murmured as he allowed her to be the aggressor. “There was this girl when I was eleven….” His hands were on Rosie’s back, one unhooking her dress and one slowly travelling to her waist and hip. 

Rosie finished a kiss and lifted her head some to look into Karl’s eyes. She unbuttoned the top button of his _feldbluse_ and then his white shirt. “It’s Sunday night.”

“It is,” Karl agreed as his lips gently tugged at hers. As he sat up with Rosie, he glanced at the fire. Rosie went to pull Karl’s coat, pistol belt, and hat from the garderobe in case Jojo started wandering around on Christmas Eve night and locked the front door. Karl quickly banked the fire, grabbed the book Rosie had given him, then followed Rosie upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time. 

Rosie threw Karl’s things on her reading chair while Karl closed and locked the bedroom door. She grabbed him by the top pockets and pulled him to the side of the bed. Rosie hastily unbuttoned the _feldbluse_ and pushed it off Karl’s shoulders into the floor. Karl bent down and kissed her deeply. His hands unfastened her dress then unhooked her bra. He pulled them along with her slip down her arms and heard the dress drop on the floor. Rosie was undoing the tiny buttons on his shirt. 

“Forget the shirt,” Karl muttered as he flipped his arms out of his braces. He pulled down her silk panties around her silk stockings. “Is there any silk in this country you don’t own?” he asked sarcastically as he pushed her onto her back.

Rosie sat back up and unbuttoned his trousers, yanking them and his cotton boxers down. “You’re not wearing any long underwear.”

“I know. I damn near froze to death walking to church.” He leaned down to Rosie as she grabbed him by the cheek and neck, and suddenly he was enveloped by her. Her legs wrapped around his hips and her feet pushed down on the backs of his thighs. He ravenously kissed her down her neck and between her breasts then back up the other side of her neck. Rosie pulled Karl’s lips back to hers. He tried to make love to her as quietly as possible. They had no idea if Jojo was awake, and his room was under Rosie’s. Rosie pressed Karl’s head to her shoulder when he pulled her as tight to him as he could. As he gradually relaxed afterward, he felt Rosie’s stockinged foot run down the back of his thigh to his calf.

“Somehow I doubt I’m the first person you’ve fucked with your boots on.” 

Karl sighed. “I’ve fucked a lot of people with my boots on. You’re probably the first I’ve made love to with them on though.” 

He held tight to Rosie and turned onto his back. He smiled up at her, caressing her cheek and then her brow. Rosie sat up on his hips. She reached back and pulled her stockings off her feet. Sliding her hands under Karl’s shirt, she ran her fingers up his sides pushing his shirt over his head and then off his arms. Karl sat up while Rosie kissed him. Her hands draped over his shoulders. “I need to take off my boots,” he finally told her between kisses.

[1] Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray. 1751.

[2] Monopoly was released in Germany in 1936 but quickly pulled for unknown reasons. The board was based on Berlin. Unsold copies were destroyed when the warehouse was bombed during the course of the war. (Bonham’s, 2015). Since they are rare, these sets can sell for upwards of 1000 £. Scrabble wasn’t released in Germany until the 1950’s, so a bit of an anachronism.

[3] This is a real antique. 


	4. Christmas Day

###  Christmas Day

Rosie wanted Karl to stay longer that snowy morning, but she didn’t ask because she knew he wouldn’t. He rose at 5:45, as always, half dressed, went to the bathroom, then came back and finished dressing. Dressed in her robe, she walked downstairs with him where he put on his coat, and she looped his scarf around his neck. She gave him a bottle of whiskey and a wrapped box for Freddie. “It’s a sweater.”

Karl was touched. “Thank you, from Freddie. I didn’t know you could knit.”

“I can’t. Frau Gottlieb unraveled a matching set of sweaters she made her boys when they were younger and reknit them. A little sad, but at least now Freddie has another sweater.”

Karl put his free arm around Rosie and held her close. His country was reduced to reknitting the clothes of the dead. “Thank you.”

“What did you get Freddie for Christmas?”

“Oh, a book I saw him repeatedly look at when we had to pass through Berlin this summer. All color plates of flowers.”

Rosie raised her eyes. “Karl,” she told him, rubbing her hands across the top buttons of his greatcoat. “Do you ever tell him you love him?” She saw his eyebrows reflexively lift. “Because you do, and hearing that from someone you love is the best present in the world.”

Karl didn’t answer. He kissed Rosie deeply and hugged her again. “Merry Christmas, my dearest Grafine Rosie.” He gave her a last kiss before she opened the front door on yet another dark, snowy morning.

“Merry Christmas, my darling Graf Karl.” Rosie reluctantly let his hand slide from hers as he left, then closed the door.

Walking home, Karl saw more people out than he thought he would. He guessed not everyone had passed out at their relatives’ and waited until noon to leave. Christmases in Berlin had been raucous, drunken affairs that lasted all night with uncles, aunts, and cousins sleeping anywhere, whereas the few they spent in Franconia before the war tended to involve a more sober Christmas morning hunt for the men and boys. Passing a bakery, Karl could smell the ovens going. He and Freddie had bread, so Karl didn’t stop. 

He let himself into the _Jugend_ building and locked up behind himself. On the way upstairs, he checked his office, especially since no one had been in the building overnight. He left small tells around his desk and the filing cabinets. The locked drawer on his desk always had the handle-pull upright. Everything appeared in order, and he continued upstairs. He spent a solitary morning saddle soaping his trunks and luggage.

The doors downstairs finally banged open and closed near two in the afternoon. Freddie appeared, said nothing as he hung up his coat, and went into the bathroom where he promptly vomited. Karl waited a few minutes and heard Freddie vomit again. He walked over and leaned on the doorframe. “Freddie?”

Freddie held up his hand and, before he could say anything, heaved into the toilet a third time. “They started drinking again with breakfast. I threw up all the way home,” he explained regretfully.

“Oh, my.” Karl had thought his father and uncles drank heavily at Christmas. 

“I have no idea what happened last night, but I don’t think it was good. Everyone was smiling at me this morning.” Freddie laid down on the delightfully cold tile floor.

Karl felt his stomach tremble. That could be very bad indeed. “Well, let’s hope all you did was propose to marry the girl when the war’s over. I’m going to make you some _kräutertee_.”

Freddie hadn’t come out of the bathroom when the tea was ready, so Karl took it in to him. Freddie was slumped against the wall. His shaking hands could barely hold the mug. Karl felt Freddie’s damp forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” he said with relief. 

“I swear I am never drinking like that again. They weren’t drinking schnapps either. It was called palinka.”

Karl nodded. A classmate in Heidelberg had once brought homemade palinka back from a visit to Hungary. Karl and his friends thought they might die from it. “Yep. _Kerítésszaggató_ translates to _fence chopper_ in Hungarian. It’s two to three times as powerful as schnapps. Try to drink your tea then let’s get you in bed.” Karl pulled out a pair of his pajamas and a pair of clean underwear for Freddie. He checked on Freddie and found him asleep with his forehead leaned on the bowl of the toilet. Sighing, Karl gently pulled Freddie out of the floor and walked him over to the bed. He undressed Freddie and got him into the pajamas then laid him down. He pulled the blankets over him. He didn’t think Freddie had ever been this drunk. “You’re going to be ok, Freddie.”

“Karl?” Freddie asked without opening his eyes.

“Yes?”

“Where do the boobs go?”

Karl stifled a laugh. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow.” He kissed Freddie’s cheek and left him to sleep it off.


	5. Tuesday, December 26

###  Tuesday, December 26th

Freddie woke up early the next morning. He vaguely remembered Karl repeatedly waking him up in the night with aspirin and tea. He looked down at Karl sleeping next to him. He didn’t remember the beds being together at all. Freddie felt a need for the bathroom and brushed his furry teeth while he was in there. He hadn’t shaved in two days either. He rubbed his hands on his rough cheeks. Karl always looked vigorously dashing with a bit of beard growth. He just looked prickly. Freddie didn’t want to shave though. It was still dark and felt cold. He decided to just get back in bed. It was a public holiday anyway.

When Freddie did get back into the bed, he carefully put his arm over Karl’s hip and pressed his cheek on Karl’s back. His hand next to Karl’s stomach barely stroked the smooth hair there. He’d seen a lot of naked men in the Army and discovered that he liked some body hair, but not the men who seemed to have pelts. Nor did he particularly like curly body hair, or men who had bulging muscles. The especially smooth and skinny men just reminded him of wet eels. Karl was perfect in Freddie’s eyes. Karl’s smile made Freddie’s stomach flutter. It was easy and a bit lazy, when it was genuine, and his eyes softened, even the bad one. Karl’s tight lipped smiles never extended to his eyes. His only fault was that he still also loved women. It vexed Freddie that he didn’t know with whom Karl was having such an intense affair that he refused to entertain the thought of skipping a night with her. But, right then, Freddie had Karl all to himself. 

Karl felt Freddie get out of bed and return. He waited to see if Freddie was going back to sleep. Freddie didn’t try to caress Karl awake. Karl turned over and kissed Freddie. “Feeling better?” he asked putting his arms around Freddie.

“I’m never drinking like that again in my life.”

“You said that yesterday, too.” Karl opened his eyes and rubbed the top of Freddie’s head. “You also asked me where the boobs go.”

Freddie hid his face in the pillow in embarrassment.

“It’s a legitimate question, Freddie,” Karl smiled. 

“I mean, men are nice and flat across the chest. Just muscles. But, boobs move,” Freddie said in frustration. “Do they go to either side, squish up together, toward the neck, down to the stomach? It’s infuriating. Men are so much easier.”

Karl was quietly laughing. “I’d never thought about it like that.”

“You haven’t?”

Karl shook his head.

“So, where do they go?”

“Wherever the girl wants them. She knows what feels best.” Karl kissed Freddie again, this time with his tongue barely brushing over Freddie’s lips. 

Freddie rose up and pushed Karl to his back. He had learned a lot from Karl: how to kiss anyone, how to touch gently yet seductively, how to love every part of another body. As he kissed Karl, Freddie’s hand slid down Karl’s flank to his hip and toward the back. After months of Karl’s fearful nervousness, Freddie had learned not to lift his hand from Karl’s body. Freddie slid his other hand under Karl’s back. They kissed as they turned over together, and Karl kissed his way across Freddie’s chest and down his stomach. Freddie had soft, downy hair across his stomach and chest, as though it was just growing in. 

As Karl kissed the very tip of Freddie’s now firm phallus, Freddie reached for Karl’s pillow. He propped himself up so that he could watch what Karl did. He caressed Karl’s cheek and hair and stroked down Karl’s nape. Karl had him completely engorged and in his mouth, and Karl’s hands slipped under Freddie’s butt, kneading those firm muscles.

“Do that thing with your finger,” Freddie panted. He swore to himself he wasn’t going to close his eyes. He was going to watch Karl for once. 

Karl paused in fellating Freddie for a moment in order to wet his index finger. He resumed with vigor, and Freddie felt Karl’s hands playing with his scrotum and then his perineum. Sighing as Karl’s index finger entered him, Freddie groaned and arched his back, momentarily obscuring his view of Karl’s mouth on his member. He didn’t orgasm immediately, but Karl wasn’t preventing him. After only a few more strokes, Freddie couldn’t stop himself from holding Karl’s neck tighter or thrusting hard. Karl easily took Freddie’s last few deep thrusts in stride. All Freddie could think about was how amazing that particular orgasm felt in Karl’s warm, slick throat. It was nothing like orgasming while having sex with a woman.

Sitting up, Freddie pulled at Karl to kiss him. Karl slowly moved up Freddie’s body kissing him the entire way. Freddie ran his foot down the back of Karl’s leg. He wrapped his arms around Karl’s chest, feeling how wonderful two sets of pectorals felt firmly pressed against one another. No wiggling or wobbling, just strong muscles and a bit of tickly hair. Karl lifted his lips away from Freddie’s. “What?” Freddie whispered with a smile.

Karl looked down at the floor. He felt clammy sweat breaking out on him. “I…I’m…” Karl got out of bed and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He couldn’t hide it from Freddie this time. 

Freddie heard Karl vomiting. Concerned he pulled his underwear and Karl’s pajama bottoms on. “Karl? Are you alright?” he softly asked from outside the closed door. He heard more retching and coughing, then the water running. 

Karl came out a few moments later. He was pale and wouldn’t look at Freddie. Karl went to his wardrobe and put on clean underwear and an undershirt. Freddie carefully took Karl’s hand in his as Karl leaned his head on a shelf. “I’m sorry, Freddie.”

“Are you sick?”

“No,” Karl answered softly yet evasively.

“How long has this been going on?”

Karl took a deep breath and looked upward. Freddie saw the tears at the corners of Karl’s eyes. Freddie took Karl’s other hand as well. He was standing behind Karl and gently hugged him, making Karl hug himself. “Does it happen every time?”

“No.”

“Does it happen with Her?”

“Some.”

Freddie didn’t say he was glad to hear that. “Karl,” Freddie began as he pressed his forehead against the back of Karl’s head. “Krieger beat and raped you then made you sit there like a dog wondering if it was your last night on earth. My God, we treat dogs better than that before putting them down. If I ever see that bastard again, I might shoot him. He should hang for what he did to you.”

Karl took a deep breath. “But, running to vomit every time I have sex? It’s so…insulting to you.”

“I’m not insulted, Karl. I’m furious with Krieger. Does She know?”

Karl nodded. 

Freddie sighed. He wondered how much She actually knew. “I love you, Karl, and I’d do anything to make this better.”

Karl wincingly smiled. “I love you, too, Freddie.” He turned his face and barely kissed Freddie’s cheek. 

“You know the only one who can take care of you is a sergeant because officers are shit at taking care of themselves. You can take care of three hundred kids or eight hundred soldiers, but if it weren’t for some lowly sergeant, you’d still be wondering who to ask for toothpowder.”

Karl started to laugh. Freddie was fairly correct. Officers painted with broad strokes, and sergeants filled in the details and made corrections. “What am I going to do without you when this is over?”

“I guess you just need to move to Dortmund.” Freddie smiled at Karl’s chuckle. “Unless, you’re going to stay with Her,” he added tentatively.

Karl shook his head. “I don’t think her husband would approve.”

Freddie kissed and hugged Karl. “Then it’s settled. You’re moving to Dortmund. You want some breakfast? I’m starving.”


End file.
